With the close of another "American Idol" season we thought it appropriate to check in with two former "Idol" contestants who held Seattle -- and the nation -- in their thrall just a year ago.

Bothell's beat-boxing B-Shorty, Blake Lewis, finished second last season to Jordin Sparks. Finishing at No. 7: Federal Way's Sanjaya Malakar. (All three had auditioned for "Idol" at KeyArena.)

Lewis' loyal Blaker Girls drummed up local support that blossomed into a national fan base, which came back weekly to propel him to the season finale last May. Malakar became an early sensation more for his modern-day Shaun Cassidy appeal than for his singing ability, thanks to a legion of screaming Fanjayas.

(For the record, he's so over the hair. Don't go there.)

In the year since the finale, Lewis has come out with an album on a major label tied to the "Idol" empire and has been a guest on morning and late-night talk shows. Malakar has been a regular on the awards-show and charity-fundraiser circuits.

For better -- not for worse -- "Idol" changed their lives.

"Definitely that exposure, the communication through that television show is amazing," said Lewis, 26, in an interview last week. "I won't be able to have that communication again."

He has tried to capitalize on it by putting all his effort into the album "Audio Day Dream." He co-wrote almost all of the tracks and had the album in the works when he began the "Idol" competition last year. He signed with 19 Recordings/Arista Records, whose parent company is the BMG Label Group.

When it was released in December, "Audio Day Dream" popped at the No.10 position on the Billboard charts, selling more copies than the debuts of two "Idol" runners-up (Justin Guarini and Diana DeGarmo) but fewer than others (Clay Aiken, Bo Bice, Katharine McPhee). Since then it has dropped to 166th, with sales hitting a plateau around 284,000 copies.

Mixed reviews are the best way to characterize the reaction to "Audio Day Dream." The Seattle P-I, the Los Angeles Times and the Cleveland Plain Dealer liked it, crediting Lewis with being able to tap into a range of musical genres (electro/funk/pop/new wave) and take advantage of producers such as One Republic's Ryan Tedder, BT and Clive Davis (executive producer and grand pooh-bah of the "Idol" recording empire). Critics panned it as much too pedestrian for the potential Lewis showed on "Idol."

The only thing Lewis said he regrets about the show is not being able to sing the finale's signature tune, "This Is My Now," his way -- but he said he's not bitter. Ballad-strong Sparks handily knocked it out of the park.

Although he has promoted the album and its remixes on talk shows and radio stations around the country, Lewis has been mostly staying local, working on his home studio in Kenmore and continuing to perform throughout the area in places like Neumo's, Nectar, ToST, High Dive and Jet, a North Seattle venue where he said he started his craft, and his favorite, Wallingford's Seamonster Lounge.That's Lewis, a local boy who has tried to stay the same goofy guy who used to clown around at Inglemoor High School and who brought all his vinyl to "Idol" so that whoever the special guests/mentors were in a particular week, he'd have the right album for them to autograph. He's still in awe of having spoken to Quincy Jones, Bono, and Nick Hexum, 311's lead singer.

Both Lewis and Malakar performed with the other Top 10 "Idol" finalists in the 50-city tour last summer after last season's finale. Malakar said that as soon as he was voted off the show he was jetting to New York and Los Angeles for press junkets and then back for the TV finale with other finalists.

"From there it just progressed into everything moving very quickly," Malakar, 18, said last weekend. "You have to be able to learn as you go."

Soon he was the darling of the awards shows, winning in reality TV categories, such as "best TV reality star" at the 2007 Teen Choice Awards and an unlikely -- but popular -- guest at last year's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. He made a recent trip to New York for the South Asian Excellence Awards and has plans to visit India.

Charity fundraisers also have become among his favored activities, with a recent appearance at the Dalai Lama's Seeds of Compassion visit that culminated in a discussion with middle-schoolers and older students who could be Malakar's peers. One of the latest events, Ubuntu, he organized to raise money to send books to South Africa. He did this with the Total Experience Gospel Choir, which also has spawned two other "Idol" top 24 contestants.

"They call me the Idol breeder," said Pastor Pat Wright, Total Experience's director. She has seen Malakar mature into a performer over the six years she has known him. "Idol," she said, changed the carefree teen who didn't take things too seriously.

"He's a lot more confident in his ability," Wright said, "because it helped him to hone his skills."

For Malakar, "Idol" brought him something instantaneous and unexpected: fame.

"It's great to be seen by millions of people," he said. "You're able to showcase who you are."

He has been home this past week and enjoyed the weekend's mild weather by walking around the U District Fair and the Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market. He still gets stopped when he's out and about.

"I assumed after I got off the show I'd be able to hide my hair under my hat and go out," he said, "but people ... notice. It's kinda cool, but sometimes it's kind of overwhelming."

Malakar's manager, Ricardo Frazer, who also works with Sir Mix-a-Lot, said that for now Malakar is going to concentrate on making his own album independently.

Perhaps the biggest lesson Malakar took away from "Idol" was taking the many jabs from Simon Cowell and the other judges with a grace beyond his years.

"I just take it as everyone's opinion," he said. "Everyone's entitled to what they think. I can't judge them on that; it's human."